By Any Other Nerd

What Is It An article from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting Like many other pieces, this short article reminds me of how much things don't change over the generations.  First, the article is  concerned about rates of success in mathematics; something we still struggle with in colleges.  Then, of course, it raises the question about asking and engaging students about why they may or may not succeed in this area.  We still struggle with relying on what we suspect as instructors to be the issue and hearing what students believe to be the problem.  And then we also often look towards one solution as opposed to multiple solutions when trying to solve how to improve success in a singular area of study.  This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the...

What Is It An advertisement from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting One of the earliest images in this project looked at a Bonwit, Teller, & Co image and this one is in a similar vein  in terms of its content.  Again, the imagery surrounding the ad is striking in terms of the representation of elite white women being wooed by elite white men with cupid smack-dab in the middle, while the entire scene is held up by either Africans, Middle-Eastern or Southeast Asian workers. It's such a strong message about how the Bonwit Teller & Co as well as the society at large view race. I know this was fairly common for the time, but it is striking to how clear of a message such an image communicates about the nature of race in American society.   This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creat...

What Is It An advertisement from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting It's fascinating to see what shows up in early ads and in this case, "Lady Sealpax" has "Athletic Underwear for Women--Just like brother wears!".  I'm impressed with the aspirations towards being like men (though not in the sense that it is applauding the male idea, but just in the idea that it is saying women can be more than feminine).  I'm also curious how long this particular campaign--women as equal to men--stayed the norm for Sealpax after World War I ended and in which publications such ads were effective.  I'm dubious that such a campaign was as effective in Ladies Home Journal as it might be in this women's college newspaper, wherein readers might actually participate in sports. This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reus...

What Is It An advertisement from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting Though World War II more well-known for the mobilization of women, there was a clear and sincere effort to mobilize women into the workforce and to support the war in many direct and indirect ways in World War I--it certainly contributed to the passing of the 19th Amendment.  However, I see ads like this and it strikes me of how little the culture thought of women.  The ad seems to say that now that the war is over, women should return to re-presenting themselves as objects, not subjects.  This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the  full album on Flickr . By Any Other Nerd Blog  by  Lance Eaton  is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlik...

What Is It An advertisement from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting There's not much to say here besides the fact that I didn't realize Abercrombie & Fitch was such an old company.  I assumed it was some company that emerged in the 1980s or something, but apparently it is much older than that.  The fact that they are catering to middle and upper-class white women though is not particularly surprising, given their history of race issues . This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the  full album on Flickr . By Any Other Nerd Blog  by  Lance Eaton  is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License .

What Is It An article  from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting I can appreciate the hope and sentiment of this piece, but a hundred years later and several genocides, apartheid, and other such atrocities make me think the author was a bit too generous in how long this process this would take.  It is interesting to see this sentiment so early in the 20th century though:  "The old idea that we must superimpose our Western civilization on the peoples of India and China is fast being defeated." However, it seems to me that the final line, "The power of a great emotion, and that emotion the love of God in Jesus Christ, can alone accomplish the miracle." gives away the game.  First, it calls upon a miracle, rather than people to do the hard work.  Second, by enshrining this goal of defusing racial prejudice (solely focused on the "East"--nevermind internally) in Christianity,...

What Is It An article from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting A student lamenting about the costs of books in the college bookstore?  No way! 100 years later and we are still troubled by the exorbitant prices of the college bookstore.  Again, things change and yet they don't.  Interestingly, the bookstore also ran rental programs which is something else done now, though I'm not even sure they are at half-prices anymore.  It makes me think what will the commentary about bookstores 100 years from now.  This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the  full album on Flickr . By Any Other Nerd Blog  by  Lance Eaton  is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License .

What Is It An advertisement from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting I'm curious if the image of the woman on the right is indeed the "The Dress of the Hour for the Woman of To-Day."  If so, I'm curious about what makes it the dress of the hour?  The image on the right is curious because showing a women in a dress ringing a bell invokes the message of the dress of the hour.  She's ringing the hourly bell in her new dress.  However, it also denotes a sense of freedom as her outfit also seems to evoke a revolutionary garb and the most famous bell, the liberty bell, being run.  The image captures both of these ideas while the ad also reports that the dress is "serviceable, practical, smartly tailored"-which hint at a freedom of movement for the modern woman.  This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for r...

What Is It An advertisement from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting I'm regularly intrigued by the different strategies used for war bonds.  I remember seeing them a lot when I was reading comics of the 1940s as well as listening to old time radio.  The comic ads were different from the radio ads in how they appealed to the audience, and both of those are different from the liberty bond ads in the Wellesley News, which often make stronger moral appeals based upon the role of females (domestic roles, typically).  In this instance, using guilt and resourcefulness by claiming "You will NEVER be excused or forgiven for wasteful extravagance now.  SAVE and BUY LIBERTY BONDS.  Don't criticize--energize!".  The message also seems to play upon women's purity with the idea that they could be forever tarnished by a "wasteful extravagance."   This submission is  part of...

What Is It A joke from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting I'm curious with this short piece from the Wellesley Newspaper.  In a patriarchal culture, the final line, "Marry them" might seem to assume that the women would return to their roles as caretakers, but in fact, the real meaning seems to be that men coming back from the war need to be married and homemakers since women are now the ones with the education and jobs.  This is a powerfully subversive message for this time and speaks to the growing shift in views about men and women on the precipice of the 19th Amendment.  Granted, it is offered as a joke, but it offers a lot of promise about shifting attitudes and possibilities for women.   This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the  full album o...

What Is It An article from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting Given that colleges of the last fifty years have been seen as homes of resistance towards war movements, it's interesting to see this college newspaper advocate towards silence with regards to those who hold pacifist leanings.  The line that sticks out "If a person is, by absolutely sincere conviction, a pacifist, she out to be permitted to remain in college just so long as she is silent and inactive in her belief."  Much like the later Red Scares, McCarthyism, and the Post-9/11 PATRIOT Act seeing the press join in on the silence of freedom of expression is always scary and disheartening within the United States.  This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the  full album on Flickr . By Any Other ...

What Is It An article from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting Any time an educational institution that caters to middle and upper-class white people begins to speak of African Americans, it's always worth listening to. Throw in that the article is from the 1910s, a racially-tense period of history (ok, that's not saying much in truth--all of our history in the United States is racially tense), and it's for sure to be curious.  The characterization of the young African-American women who had visited has all sorts of interesting tells.  Their "unusual effect of their harmony" and the "miserable little cabin" certain reveal their judgment.  I'm left wondering how or why did the boys' building burn down.  Was this an accident or something done by others less interested in the education of African American youth?  And overall, as an article about the recital, it's ...

What Is It An article from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting A curious piece in a student newspaper at a women's college.  The first half of the critique of education being conducted by unmarried women implies that it is a bad thing since they average three years and also that this is an intentional mission of education in the United States.  The second made me laugh because yet again, it's an instance of something we hear now, 100 years later about how God is being taken out of schools.  Apparently, we're still waiting for the educational apocalypse.   This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the  full album on Flickr . By Any Other Nerd Blog  by  Lance Eaton  is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unp...

What Is It A joke from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting Who doesn't love a good French language joke?  As someone who has challenges in hearing and making sense of English and other languages because of my dyslexia (for those that don't know dyslexia can affect hearing --not just vision), I appreciate this particular joke as I often suffer from this issue of mis-hearing or just not being able to make sense of what someone is saying.  This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the  full album on Flickr . Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and  check out some of my other posts! . You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by  signing up for them via email. This work is licensed under a...

What Is It An article from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting It doesn't entirely surprise me that nearly 100 years later and we are still incapable of respectfully or usefully discussing the politics and religions of the "Near East."  I'm curious if "Mohammedanism" was a generally used term by the West at this time and curious to know what kinds of images this evoked in the common person and of course, what Muslims made of this term.  This story ran about six years before The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and that makes me wonder what were the contemporary images of Muslims in the 1910s.  The West's fear of the "Holy War" seems to be something that still dominates many individuals' abilities to understand and meaningfully interact with followers of Islam. But to know that this misconception has been ongoing for generations reminds me of how hard it is for people ...

What Is It An advertisement from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting I continued to find the General Electric advertisements interesting in that it makes me wonder how long has the practice of news-vertisements been around.  I remember seeing these in magazines that I used to read where there would be stories sponsored by or written by a company and it would be clearly delineated.  With General Electric, they take out nearly full page ads and fill a good chunk of it with text and compelling imagery.  They attempt to tell a story and through all of this, lure in the reader, whereas so many other ads in this publication keep it short and simple with maybe an image, big bold words, and the product.  I wonder when this practice began, which companies practiced it and what the end result was.  This piece uses X-Rays as a hook to get people interested in learning more about and pot...

What Is It An advertisement from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting I remember switching to Wrigley's gum in high school.  From the super-sugary Hubba-Bubba and the like to Wrigleys with it's Juicy Fruit and eventually more-mint flavored offerings.  So when I saw an ad for Wrigleys in the Wellesley Newspaper, almost 100 years ago, I was surprised.  I figured it was an old company but not one so old.  However, this ad is just strange.  All the text reads fine but the picture of what appears to be a man with an over-enlarged head in a costome of upward arrow just seems odd.  It makes me wonder how others encountered the ad the first time they saw it.  Was this figure a common hallmark of the 1910s akin to the "Double-Mint Twins" of the 1980s?  Does this mascot have a name? This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all ph...

What Is It An article from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting I don't even know where to begin with this article.  I'm curious to know what "making too free with the sailors--just the edge of immoral conduct or just the road to it" means according to the author.  And exactly how has Hale House "coralled them"?  What kind of "legitimate wholesome form of amusement" do they plan to dispense with on Wednesday night for the ladies?  I enjoy pieces like these that hint at so much but tell you so little.  They can lead one to research the answer or become the cornerstones of interesting stories to be written. This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the  full album on Flickr . Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to...

What Is It A joke from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting I love me a good pun.  I remember always liking bad jokes but it was the language teacher in sixth grade who introduced me to the word, "pun."  I can't remember his name, but he gave us a potpourri of languages so that we could decide which language we wanted to pursue in 7th and 8th grade.  He took a particular liking/disliking to me since I was (to no one's surprise) a bit of a smart-ass.  After one remark, he made me go home and find out what "pun" means and I've been using it ever sense.  So, present me with a pun, and I'll be your new best friend.  Make that pun a reference to Frankenstein and it's like hitting triple word score on Scrabble (or Words With Friends for you, youngin's).   This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reus...

What Is It An article from the Wellesley News, the student newspaper of Wellesley College, from the late 1910s.  Why I Find It Interesting This post had me grinning like the idiot I am.  I'm amused because I think many of us wouldn't think of anything wrong with knitting in public and many of us find it an admirable skill.  However, the author's tone makes the act sound like something only a depraved individual would do.  In fact, I think this reminds me so much of the tone that people have (myself included at one point) with people with cellphones. The self-righteous condemnation of people for not behaving in the way deemed proper has always been a means of class-corralling and apparently is one that isn't going away any time soon. This submission is  part of the Image of the Week series .  For access to all photos, which are open for reuse under a Creative Commons License, check out the  full album on Flickr . Did you enjoy this read? Let me k...